Оглавление
Michael Arnheim. Why Rome Fell
Why Rome Fell. Decline and Fall, or Drift and Change?
Contents
Guide
Pages
About the Author
Preface
Introduction
Why Did the West Fall?
“Indissoluble Union and Easy Obedience”
Divided Loyalties in a Fractured Society
“The madness of the heretics must be curbed” (CTh 16.5.65.)
So What?
East Is East, and West Is West
Gothia or Romania?
Three Revolutions
Structural or Individual?
The Use of the Past
1 Rome From Monarchy to Monarchy
Section A. From Romulus to Diocletian
Relics of Monarchy
“Republic” and Democracy
From One Brutus to Another
“In the Consulship of Julius and Caesar”
The Fall of the Republic
The Gracchi Brothers
Gaius Marius
Sulla
Pompey
Julius Caesar
Caesar’s Heir
Avoiding Julius Caesar’s Mistake
The Transmogrification of an Equestrian
Augustus’s Autobiography (Res Gestae Divi Augusti)
Did Augustus Wield Sole Power?
Augustus: “Optimi Status Auctor”?
From Tiberius to Diocletian
Section B. Two Disquieting Tendencies
“The Fourth Century and the ‘Conflict of the Orders’ Belong in the Realm of Myth.”
Conflict of the Orders
“Monopoly of Office and Power”
Patronage or Clientela
Polybius Was Right
What Polybius Actually Said
Formal Rights vs. Practical Realization
“Elective Dictatorship”
“Significance of Graduated Voting Absurdly Exaggerated”
“Rem Publicam…in Senatus Populique Romani Arbitrium Transtuli”
Mommsen’s “Dyarchy”
Syme: “A Monarchy Rules through an Oligarchy”
Envoi: Augustus v. Alexander
The Roman Republic as “Direct Democracy”
The Roman Revolution
“The First Emperor”
2 Diocletian Hammer of the Aristocracy
Principate to Dominate
Pomp and Ceremony
The Imperial Cult
The Great Persecution
Julian on Augustus and Diocletian
Imperial Power
Was Diocletian an Autocrat?
Princeps Legibus Solutus Est
The Tetrarchy
Diocletian Chopped the Provinces into Pieces
Titles of Honor
Emperor and Senatorial Aristocracy
Eunuchs
Conclusion
3 Constantine the Reformer
Constantine’s Reforms
Imperial Musical Chairs
Provincial Administration
Praetorian Prefects
Separation of Military and Civilian Posts
Some New Administrative Posts and Honors
Standing Room Only
Fusion or Confusion?
“Lineage Distinguished by its Nobility”
Proculus the Pagan Priest
Some New-style Vicars
Aristocratic Praetorian Prefects
The Maxentius Conundrum
Short-term Appointments
The Senate as an Institution
Constantine and Christianity
Helena Augusta
From Vision to Deathbed Baptism
The Religion of the Senatorial Aristocracy
Constantinople: The “New Rome”
Conclusion: Constantine the Reformer
4 The Christian Empire
Constantine’s Christian Legacy
Communal and Creed Religions
Christian Population Estimates
“Constantine was not Responsible for the Triumph of Christianity”
“Constantine Legislated not Christianity but Toleration.”
Constantine’s Ban on Animal Sacrifice
Christian Intolerance
“What is Truth?”
Constantine’s Kick-start
“The Blending of Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority”
Office-Holders under Constantine’s Sons
Western vs. Eastern Appointees
Noble Office-Holders from Julian to Theodosius
A Bird’s-Eye View of the High Nobility—the Anicii
A Bird’s-Eye View of the High Nobility—the Ceionii
A New Kind of Alliance
Toward a Christian Byzantine Empire
Heresiology “A Recognized Intellectual Discipline”
Constantine’s Legacy
Constantine and Christianity
Constantine’s Administrative Revolution
Constantine, First Byzantine Emperor
5 Continuity and Change
Birth, Land, and Office
“Large Estates Have Ruined Italy, and Now Even the Provinces.”
Peasants, Free and Unfree
The Changing Economy
Land and Office
Patronage
Amicitia
Medieval Survival
Continuity or Change in the West?
Who were the Aristocrats in Early Medieval Europe?
The Law of Fiefs 1037
Oath of Fealty 757
An Exercise in Labeling
When is a Schism Not a Schism and Why Does it Matter?
An Unparadoxical Paradox
Some Real Paradoxes
Continuity and Change in East and West—Roundup. Birth, Land, and Office in the West
The Byzantine Paradox
East vs. West
Power Structure and Ethos
6 Two Models of Government
Preview
Case Study I: Rome
Conclusion: Roman Social Mobility and Ethos
Case Study II: Classical Greek Tyranny
Tyranny and Democracy
Athens: From Tyranny to Democracy
“In Name a Democracy…”
Populist Generals
Who Had the Whip Hand?
Pericles and the Aristocracy
Beneath the Surface of the Athenian Democracy
Whisper vs. Shout
“All Leaders Were Demagogues”
“The New Politicians”
Cleon and the Sycophants
Charismatic Leadership
Government by Discussion?
Greece: Conclusion
Muddled Perception
Case Study III: France
Henry IV: “A Chicken in Every Pot”
Louis XIII (r. 1610–1643)
Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715)
Louis XV (r. 1715–74)
Maupeou (1714–92)
Lebrun (1739–1824)
“The Inevitable Liquidation of an Exhausted Expedient”
“Constitutional Consensus”
“Could Not Have Been Undone”
Run-Up to Revolution
Estates General to Guillotine
Mirabeau (1749–91): “L’indivisibilité Du Monarque Et Du People”
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)
From Napoleon to Napoleon and Beyond
Binary Power Structure
Case Study IV: England: 1066 And All That
Prelude to a Power-Struggle
Magna Carta
The Rise of Parliament
Richard II and the Peasants’ Revolt
Henry VII (r. 1485–1509)
Henry VIII (r. 1509–47)
Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603): “For it is Monstrous that the Feet Should Direct the Head.”
James I (r. 1603–25): “The Judges….may Easily Make of the Law Shipmen’s Hose.”
Charles I (r. 1625–49): “I See the Birds Have Flown.”
Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)
Was Cromwell a Dictator?
Charles II: “The Merry Monarch”
“The Glorious Revolution”
Case Study V: Cuba
Case Study VI: Argentina
Case Study VII: Imperial China
Case Study VIII: Maoist China
Conclusion. Equality, Equality of Opportunity, and the Aristocratic Ethos
Aristocratic Ethos
Equality vs. Equality of Opportunity
Monarchy vs. Aristocracy
Monarchy: Real and Unreal
Democracy
Prologue to Part Two
Decline and Fall or Drift and Change?
7 Varieties of History
“Proper Historical Writing”
The Skeptical Tendency
Baby and Bathwater
“Drowning the Baby”
Ranke: “Wie Es Eigentlich Gewesen Ist”
History as “One Damned Fact after Another”
“Cleopatra’s Nose”
“An Art of Writing History”
Torpedoing Torpor
The Oligarchy Trap
“A Monarchy Rules through an Oligarchy”
Zero-Sum Game
“Williamanmary Was a Good King”
Causation
Machiavellian History
Machiavelli continues:
And again:
So What?
Conclusion: “Proper Historical Writing”
8 Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Decline and Fall?
Gibbon’s Treatment of Religion
“The Triumph of Barbarism and Religion”
9 The Malaria Hypothesis
Other Monocausal Explanations
Conclusion
10 The Role of Religion
Communal vs. Creed Religions
Creed Religions
Communal Religions
The Roman “Pagan” State Religion
Religious Toleration, Intolerance, and Persecution
Ruth and Conversion to Judaism
Greek Communal Religion
Roman Freedom of Religion
Bacchanalia
Druids
Cybele/Magna Mater
Isis
Mithras
Roman Attitudes to Atheism
Homosexuality
“Christians to the Lions!”
Nero and the Great Fire of 64
Decius and His Libelli
Valerian: Targeting Upper Crust Christians
“The Great Persecution”
Julian’s Alleged Attack on Christianity
Roman Persecution of the Jews?
Rabbinic Judaism
Christian Dominance: How and Why?
The Rise of Islam
The Impact of Religion on Politics
Religious Continuity and Change down to the Present Day
Roundup
11 The Pirenne Thesis
Periodization
The Pirenne Thesis
The End of Mediterranean Unity?
The Real Question
Conclusion
12 “Late Antiquity”
Late Antiquity: Some of the Chief Claims
“The Barbarian Invasions Brought No Widespread Destruction.”
“Realization that There Was Nothing Wrong about Not Being Roman”
“The Sheer Success of the post-Constantinian State”
“No Determination to Use the Laws to Convert Unbelievers”
“No Evidence for a Generalized, and Inevitable, Trend toward the Victimization of Jews in the post-Constantinian Empire”
“Correct Religion Was the Glory of the Empire”
“Religious Toleration Was, at Best, a Fragile Notion”
“The Unnerving but Mercifully Brief Reign of Julian”
“Slow Shift from One Form of Public Community to Another”
Themistius: “Not for Real”
“[L]arge Bodies of Polytheists… simply Slipped Out of History”
“Christian Intolerance Has Been Overblown”
“[T]he Ability of the Upper Classes to Muffle Religious Conflict”
Aristocratic Ethos
Aristocratic Conversion to Christianity
Pagan Survival among the Senatorial Aristocracy
Round-up
13 Assassination or Accommodation?
Did the Western Empire Come to an End?
Untangling the Threads
The Road to Adrianople
Rome and the Barbarians under Theodosius I
Alaric and the Romans
The Visigoths in Gaul and Spain
Gothia or Romania?
From Visigoths to Franks
Romans, Vandals, and Huns
The Vandal Sack of Rome 455
The Significance of 476
Pulling the Threads Together
“Exceedingly Unpleasant” but “No Catastrophe”
Roundup
So What?
Three Revolutions
Structural or Individual?
14 Conclusion
Constantine: Three Changes
Power Structure
Two Models of Government
Machiavelli
Roman Power Structure
Power Structure: The Principate
Power Structure: The Dominate
Power Structure: The Constantinian Formula
Inflation of Honors or Real Change?
Social Mobility and Ethos
Constantine and Christianity
Christianity Inherently Intolerant
The Severity of Christian Intolerance
Other Arguments Minimizing Christian Intolerance
Christian Influence on Judaism and Islam
Rabbinic Judaism
Islam as a Creed Religion
Constantine’s New Rome
Was Late Antiquity a “Good Thing”?
Assassination or Senile Decay?
The Relevance of the “Fall” of the West
Glossary
Primary Sources and Abbreviations
Select Bibliography
Index
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
